


Saudade

by fourthage



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 03:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourthage/pseuds/fourthage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver adjusts to life in Ferelden again.  Mahariel helps.</p><p>Background Carver/Merrill and Mahariel/Alistair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this lovely piece of art](http://thighhighdalish.tumblr.com/post/57049344467/this-is-my-submission-to-the-reverse-dabb-i-have) by thighhighdalish on tumblr. Many thanks to loquaciousquark for the beta read and general encouragement.

Some days, Carver was hard-pressed to remember why he'd ever missed Ferelden.  Even the most friendly of outsiders referred to it as a backwards country with more dogs than sense, its succession woes only the latest in a run of self-inflicted troubles.  The less friendly ones called it a shithole and wasted no more thought on it.  And yet, just because he was born in the place, he was expected to love it.  
  
Carver was expected to love a lot of things.  His family for one—and he _did_ —but it was a grudging sort of love.  Growing up with two apostate sisters would be difficult under any circumstances, but nothing stung quite so much as watching his twin turn to their older sister for protection instead of him.  Bethany had been the one person in the family who hadn't been hard to love, so of course she was the only one who didn't make it out of Ferelden alive.  Carver had taken a shot at the ogre that had killed her, but the rifles the army gave infantrymen were notoriously hard to aim and not made to take down something of that size.  
  
After that, Carver was only too glad to leave Ferelden.  His time in Kirkwall made him reconsider, but now, pushing at a carriage hopelessly mired in mud while a fine mist fell from the sky, he wondered how he had ever missed the place.  His foot slipped and before he could catch himself, he fell knees-first into the mud.  “Bloody dwarves,” Carver muttered.  “If it had horses like a normal carriage. . .”  
  
Nathaniel came around from the other side of the carriage and helped him back up.  “If it had horses, this trip would have taken twice as long.”  
  
“Not saving us any time now,” Carver said.  The bottom half of his pants were coated in mud, and the weight threatened to pull them off his hips.  He hitched his waistband back up and tightened his belt.  
  
Nathaniel grunted, conceding the point.  His introduction to Carver had been accompanied by the confirmation that yes, he was one of _the_ Howes, and Carver expected the usual attitude of the gentry, disgraced or not.  But unlike the arls' daughters and bann's sons in the army, Nathaniel didn't demand his respect and acted like Carver was actually worth listening to.  Didn't agree with him most of the time, but didn't laugh at him either.  Nathaniel made Carver think the Wardens' talk about being brothers and sisters in the blood was more than mere words.  
  
Nathaniel took his place beside Carver and set his shoulder against the back of the carriage.  “Once more,” he said.  Carver got his feet planted best he could in the muck and at the count of three, they pushed together.  The carriage lifted slightly from its axles, but the wheels remained stuck as ever.  They strained and grunted a few minutes more before Nathaniel acknowledged defeat.  “We'll have to send someone for it,” he said.  “At least we're only a couple miles from the keep.”  
  
“Someone nothing.  Send a dwarf,” Carver said.  Nathaniel just clapped him on the shoulder and went to get their weapons from the carriage.  He handed Carver his gun and ammo case before lifting his own gunbelt with matching pistols from under the front seat.  Carver didn't need to take the elephant gun on every patrol, but he was one of only two people in the Ferelden order who could fire it safely.  He liked the distinction.  But as he trudged through the muck, he wished he'd chosen a lighter way to distinguish himself.  By the time they reached the Vigil's Keep, he was cold and miserable.   His mud-soaked pants slapped against his shins with every step and the combined weight of the gun and ammo made his back ache.  Nathaniel took pity on him and sent him on inside while he told the dwarves why they'd returned on foot.  
  
Carver scraped what he could off of his pants outside, though he knew he'd still be leaving a trail through the halls.  He hoped he could make it to his room unnoticed, but Velanna and Sigrun had their heads together in the entryway.  Carver had thought Varric was the most annoyingly cheerful dwarf in existence until he met Sigrun.  She could give Varric a run for his money.  It wasn't right, especially coming from someone who announced she was dead the same way other people announced that they'd just gotten a new pair of boots.  Velanna was no better.  Carver had tried to be friendly with her when he'd first arrived some weeks ago, but she'd made it clear she wanted little to do with yet another shem.  In other words, she was exactly like every other Dalish he'd ever met and nothing like Merrill at all.  
  
But that thought hurt, so Carver glared back when Velanna looked him up and down with a disdainful lift of her eyebrow.  Just let her make one comment.  
  
Before Velanna could say anything, Sigrun piped up.  “You look like a drowned nug,” she said.  
  
 He didn't know what that was, but he wasn't going to look foolish by asking.  “It's your fault,” he said, pulling off his boots.  
  
“My fault?”  
  
“You dwarves.”  
  
“Ah,” Sigrun said.  “I don't know why you two aren't friends,” she said to Velanna.  
  
Velanna ignored her.  “You should clean yourself up,” she said to Carver.  
  
“What do you think I'm doing?”  
  
“She means,” Sigrun said, “that we got word that the Warden-Commander is on her way back.  So, in case you wanted to make a good first impression.”  
  
Carver's smart response died in his throat.  The Commander of the Grey had been in Denerim for as long as he'd been back in the country.  He'd yet to meet the fabled hero of the Blight.  Not that he was nervous about it.  He'd been in the Deep Roads.  He'd killed his share of darkspawn.  There was no reason for the Warden-Commander to disapprove of him.  
  
But Merrill, that part of him he'd tried to forget whispered.  Merrill had talked about her former clanswoman.  She'd liked her, even if they hadn't been close.  It was a source of pride among the clans that a Dalish elf had been the one to end the Blight.  
  
Carver realized that he did, desperately, want to make a good impression.  It was unlikely Merrill and the Warden-Commander would ever cross paths again, but to be praised to Merrill by a woman held in such esteem—that was worth putting in a little extra effort.  He left for his rooms without another word, earning him a huff from Velanna that he ignored.  
  
Half an hour later, stripped and soaking in blessedly hot water, Carver admitted the dwarves weren't all bad.  Heated plumbing was worth a couple of broken-down carriages.  The ache in his muscles eased and he started to feel presentable again.  
  
Voices passed in the hall as he drained the tub: Nathaniel's and a female one he didn't recognize.  Curious, Carver pulled his robe on and cracked the bathing room's door just in time to see a fair-haired elven woman part from Nathaniel and head up the stairs to where the Warden-Commander's private rooms were.  She was here, then.  He closed the door again, and wondered how much of an idiot he would look if he wore his dress uniform to supper that night.

* * *

  
  
Mahariel leaned out of the carriage window, turning her face up to the steady drizzle.  She loved this kind of weather.  Humans complained about the damp, but she never felt more alive than when her skin was rain-slicked and the temperature was cool and bracing.  It was good to be out of the city finally.  For all that she loved Alistair, she felt a small part of her die each day she spent behind the walls of Denerim.  She would never regret securing him his birthright, but she could and did regret that it kept him trapped so often in a place made of stone and dead wood.  Only Orzammar would be worse, cut off from the sun and sky as well.  
  
Vigil's Keep was hardly better, but at least there was wild country nearby.  She and Velanna often slipped out, officially to patrol, but really to remind themselves that they were of the People, no matter how much they had to bend to human sensibilities in town.  
  
Mahariel gave a sigh and withdrew into the carriage as it approached the keep.  The nobles barely hid their contempt for her as it was, no need to give them yet another thing to gossip about by acting so blatantly elvish.  Politics was a skill she and Alistair were learning together, and she hated every lesson.  Though help did sometimes come from unexpected quarters.  
  
As if he'd heard her thought, it was Nathaniel who stood in the courtyard to greet her when she arrived.  She accepted his hand as she descended the carriage steps, a consideration she had at first spurned as an assumption of weakness on her part, until he explained it was a public gesture that she was as worthy of respect as any of the noblewomen.  After that, she'd found herself relying more and more on him to explain the baffling intricacies of the human ruling class.  Mahariel returned his greeting with a smile, glad it was him and not the seneschal who welcomed her back.  
  
“Did you get my telegram about our newest member?” Nathaniel asked as they went inside.  
  
“I did,” Mahariel said.  “Although I haven't had much time to think on it.  I'd welcome your thoughts on the matter.”  
  
“After supper?” Nathaniel suggested.  He waved his hand over his mud-splattered clothes.  “I think we could both use some freshening up.  The patrol of the farmlands didn't go quite as planned.”  
  
She looked at his clothes again.  They did seem dirtier than a mere ride would account for.  “Darkspawn, robbers, or Temmerin's latest model?”  
  
“The last, I'm afraid.  Carver was not impressed.”  
  
“I like him already.”  
  
Nathaniel chuckled as they parted.  Mahariel bathed, then spent the next few hours catching up on the correspondence not deemed urgent enough to forward to her while she was in Denerim.  She found much of it incomprehensible.  Why it mattered whether taxes were paid as a portion of the harvest or as a portion of the profit from the harvest was beyond her, but she dutifully made notes and wrote up a few recommendations, at least half of which were sure to send Garevel into fits.  She missed Varel; the man's unflappable countenance had been a steadying influence during her meetings with the banns.  
  
It was with Garevel in mind that she decided to take the evening meal in her rooms.  If she dined with the rest of the household, the seneschal would no doubt be ready with a dozen things for her to make a decision on as soon as the meal ended.  She was curious to see the new recruit, but not that curious.  She settled in her study after eating, and it wasn't long before Nathaniel joined her.  
  
“So,” she said, after they were both comfortably situated with glasses of a 9:17 red.  “He's Fereldan, emigrated to the Free Marches during the Blight, but joined up only after the Blight was over?”  
  
“Joined up is perhaps too strong a term,” Nathaniel said.  “He's said little about it, but Stroud's letter of introduction indicated that he'd been poisoned by darkspawn blood in the Deep Roads.”  
  
Mahariel frowned.  “What was he doing there?”  
  
“Hired hand on some dwarven expedition for treasure.  How they knew joining the Grey Wardens might save him is a mystery, as is how they knew the Wardens were nearby.  Stroud was unusually vague on that point.  I gather it wasn't much of a choice on Carver's part.  He was almost at death's door when the Joining took place.”  
  
The study wall was filled with portraits.  Tamlen's burned in her peripheral vision.  “No, not much of a choice at all,” Mahariel said, feeling unexpected kinship with this Carver Hawke.  “So how is he as a Warden?  Is he resentful?”  _Was he worth it_ was what she really meant.  
  
“I expected it, but no.  He's a little brash—overly eager to prove himself—but there's no resentment in him.  Not about the Wardens, anyway.”  
  
Mahariel waited, and Nathaniel smiled wryly.  
  
“He's a second son if I ever saw one.  He's only ever mentioned a sister, but you can practically feel the bitterness coming off of him when he does.  She sounds like quite the personality.”  
  
Mahariel had never yet met a Warden without troubles.  The Order did not attract those with happy, fulfilled lives.  “How is he as a fighter?”  
  
“Strong.  He's built like an ox.  Oghren took him up on one of his boasts early on, and he surprised us all by being able to shoot even that cannon Oghren calls a gun.  Hits the targets more often than not too, even with the kickback.”  
  
“Close range?”  
  
“Needs work.  I'm sure you remember the army at Ostagar.  The infantrymen weren't taught how to use their sabers beyond pointing the sharp end away from themselves.  Learns quickly, though if something turns out to require a bit of effort he loses patience.”  Nathaniel swirled his wine thoughtfully.  “I do like him.  And Stroud was wrong in not thinking much of him.  Maybe I just see some of myself in Carver, but I think he might be a better fit for the Wardens than Stroud gave him credit for.”  
  
Nathaniel was stinting with his praise and cautious with his approval.  For him to show such preference so early in an acquaintance had never happened in all the time Mahariel had known him.  She decided then that she would take Carver with her on her next patrol.  Best to find out now if Nathaniel's assessment was accurate.  Perhaps the tunnels beneath the keep.  
  
And she'd allowed her thoughts to wander.  Nathaniel was politely ignoring her lapse in attention, examining the portraits that covered the study's wall instead.  
  
“I see Sigrun draped her frame again,” he said, as she refocused.  
  
She sighed.  “Sigrun puts more effort into being dead than most people do living.”  
  
Nathaniel laughed.  “You should tell her that.”  
  
“I have,” Mahariel said.  “She took it as a compliment.”  
  
Nathaniel laughed again, and they settled into a moment of companionable silence.  He finished his glass of wine and asked, “Anything else you'd like to know?”  
  
Mahariel shook her head.  “I'll take you both on the basement patrol tomorrow, so I'll judge him for myself.  Thank you.”  Nathaniel bowed his head, courtly even in private, and took his leave.  
  
The next morning, Mahariel met him and Carver at the outbuilding that covered the tunnel entrance.  Nathaniel performed the introductions, and she gently corrected Carver when he tried to address her formally.  “Just Mahariel to you,” she said.  “The title is for the nobles.  I trust my fellow Wardens to respect me without it.”  He looked surprised but pleased at that.  “Did Nathaniel explain to you what we're doing?”  
  
“A patrol,” Carver said.  He looked confused when she led them inside instead of toward the gate, then tensed as they descended the steps to the basement.  “Is this some kind of initiation?” he asked.  
  
Mahariel had no idea what he meant, but Nathaniel was quick to shake his head.  “No, nothing like that,” he said.  “Wait a moment and you'll see.”  
  
Carver relaxed a little, but his eyes were still wary.  That kind of mistrust could be dangerous.  Mahariel unlocked the heavy door that lead down to the tunnels, and the wariness in Carver's eyes gave way to comprehension.  
  
“Right below the keep?” he asked incredulously.  
  
“The tunnels themselves are no secret,” Nathaniel said.  He pulled the chain next to the door, and the lyrium bulbs strung along the walls lit the way with a harsh blue light.  “Their extent and the fact that they are occupied by darkspawn are.”  
  
“We don't want anyone panicking,” Mahariel said.  “We sealed the tunnels a while ago, so there's no immediate threat.”  
  
“So why are we down here?” Carver asked.  He was suspicious again.  Mahariel made sure to keep her voice mild when she returned the question.  
  
“Why do you think?”  
  
She could see his hackles rise.  If Nathaniel hadn't already told her the boy was a Ferelden native, she'd have guessed it from that alone.  The humans of this country all seemed to pick up mannerisms from their hounds.  
  
“How should I know?” Carver said.  Mahariel said nothing, and shook her head minutely at Nathaniel when he frowned in disapproval.  Carver glared at the walls for a moment, then said slowly, “To make sure the seals are holding?”  
  
“Holding or not being dug around.”  Mahariel smiled at him.  “It's usually a boring patrol, but it's one that needs to be done regularly.”  That seemed to mollify Carver, and he took to the rest of the patrol with a kind of apologetic determination, asking how the seals worked and paying close attention as they showed him how to read the devices that measured vibrations in the rock.  Mahariel noted that he didn't seem to mind the few orders she gave during the patrol, elf or not.  It was another point in his favor, and she wondered how he'd escaped that particular prejudice.  When they finished, she nodded her approval to Nathaniel.  He'd do.

* * *

  
  
The following months were some of the happiest Carver had ever known.  For the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged somewhere.  He wasn't the one non-magical sibling in a family whose lives seemed built around it, or just another foot soldier under the command of a minor noble who could barely tell one end of a gun from the other.  He got training—real training—with both gun and blade, unlearning bad habits and developing the unconscious reflexes he'd envied in some of the more seasoned officers of the army.  He learned that teasing had less of a sting when he was sure of his skills, and that respect freely given was sweeter than attention demanded.  
  
The Warden-Commander remained something of a mystery to him.  Mahariel rotated him through the patrols like all the others, and since she took her fair share, that meant they often worked together, but he never managed much personal conversation with her.  Sometimes on patrol she'd be as Dalish as Merrill ever was, wandering off the road to take a closer look at a tree that seemed just the same as all the others, or to smell a flower that caught her eye.  But then when she held court with the banns, she was every inch the Commander of the Grey: focused and more than a little arrogant.  Carver had been put off by it the first time he'd had to attend in full uniform, but she'd turned her head and winked at him at one point as the banns argued amongst themselves, and he remembered what she'd said about titles and respect.  
  
At meals, Mahariel was usually quiet, content to listen to the rest of them, only occasionally inserting herself into the flow of conversation.  She seemed closest to Velanna and Nathaniel.  She often disappeared with the former into the nearby woods, or the latter into her study for hours on end.  Carver resigned himself to the fact that he hadn't impressed her as he'd hoped, but it bothered him less now than it might have earlier.  
  
Summer came, and with it the anniversary of Bethany's death.  In Kirkwall, his mother and Marian would light candles in the Chantry on the date, and spend the evening sharing stories about her.  He'd refused to participate and went to the Hanged Man pub instead, charging drinks to Varric's tab until he was thrown out.  The first year, he'd come stumbling back to Gamlen's house well after midnight, only to find Marian still sitting up, wrapped in her house robe and pacing in front of the fire.  _Selfish brat_ had been the nicest of the things she'd called him, and he knew he couldn't blame the alcohol for what he'd said back.  
  
The second year, she didn't bother to wait up, but there was a tincture for hangovers left on his pillow.  He'd thrown it out the window, furious at her condescension, and heard it smash against the cobblestones with no small amount of pleasure.  
  
This year, the thought of getting drunk didn't have the same appeal.  Marian had been right about one thing, Bethany did deserve better from him.  Her grave was only a day's journey away.  He could visit it and pay his respects.  The more he thought about it, the more right that felt, and he sought Mahariel out after breakfast one morning.  
  
“A leave of absence?” Mahariel asked.  “I don't see why not.  The darkspawn have been quiet lately.  Where will you be?”  
  
“Lothering,” Carver said.  “It's—my sister was killed there during the Blight.”  
  
“I didn't know you had another sister,” Mahariel said.  She touched his arm briefly.  “Yes, of course you may go.  Take as long as you need.”  
  
He thanked her, a little surprised she'd agreed so easily.  Nathaniel and Oghren often visited their families, but Lothering was further away than their kin.  Over the next few days, he found a farmer making the trip and arranged to catch a ride for a few coins.  They left in the early grey of morning and arrived in Lothering just before sunset.  Carver had no desire to go searching for Bethany's grave in the dark, so he stayed at the inn—not the one he had known, but rebuilt like most of the town in the new modern style—and set out the next morning.  
  
He found the way through the foothills easily enough.  It ran west of town, cutting through the rocky land unsuited for tilling until it forked near a small stream.  He took the path that veered away from the water.  Up then, to the unexpected open space where they'd been ambushed.  There was where Mother had held Bethany and cried.  Which meant that way—Carver turned north, to where there was no path, only long grass and wildflowers.  A little ways in, he found what he was looking for.  A place where the earth rose in a gentle curve, with a small group of fused rocks at one of the narrower ends.  They hadn't had time to burn Bethany's body properly, so Marian had marshaled her little skill with earth magic to make a grave and a rough marker.  
  
Carver stood over it awkwardly, not knowing quite what to do now that he was there.  In stories, people always talked at grave sites, like the dead person could hear them, but he'd always found that ridiculous and in any case he had no idea what to say.  He knew what he felt, but he'd never been good at putting that into words.  So he stood there and felt angry and sad and so, so lonely.  He even cried after a bit, because no one was there to see it, and if anyone was worth his tears, it was Bethany.    
  
He wondered how it would have been if he'd died that day instead of his twin.  If Marian would have risked Bethany in the Deep Roads or had her stay in Kirkwall.  Maybe it wouldn't have mattered what Marian wanted.  Sometimes Bethany could be the most stubborn of all of them.  
  
“You'd have hated the Wardens though,” he said aloud, then laughed at himself.  He was talking to her grave after all.  “But you probably wouldn't have been stupid enough to get poisoned in the first place.”  
  
He hesitated for a moment, then dug in his pack and took out a small, short candle and a tin of matches.  He lit the candle and balanced it carefully on top of the rocks.  “Can't hurt, right?” he said under his breath.  He sat down then, and watched the grass wave in the wind and the clouds go by overhead until the candle burnt itself out.  No feelings of peace or acceptance came over him; he still felt what he had before.  But at the end of it, he stood again and rested his hand on the stones, and knew he'd be back the next year.  Before he left, he picked a few of the flowers that he knew she'd liked, and tucked them best he could at the rocks' base.  He backed up, wondering if he should say something else, but finally just shrugged before making his way back to the path.  
  
It was later than he'd meant it to be by the time he got back to Lothering.  The farmer he'd ridden with made some fuss that they'd have to wait another day to return, but was satisfied when Carver said he'd cover the second night at the inn and whatever drink he wanted.  The Warden stipend had its uses.  
  
The man had a hangover the next morning and they started late. They made better time with the cart burdened with only the two of them, but the last hour of the journey was in the dark, and both of them were glad to see the lights of Vigil's Keep again.  
  
Dinner was long past, so Carver headed to the kitchens to filch something to eat.  He'd just filled a bowl full of berries from the icebox and topped it with a few strips of dried beef when he heard footsteps.  Old instincts had him shoving the bowl behind his back to escape a scolding before he remembered better.  
  
“That was you,” Mahariel said.  She had one of her finer dresses on, the kind she wore to do battle with the banns that required some sort of baffling feminine architecture underneath, and Carver suddenly felt how dusty he was from the road.  She looked at him curiously, and he brought the bowl back around with a grimace.  “I thought you'd be gone longer.”  She had a small bowl of her own, and she moved past him to fill it with berries as well.  Carver shuffled over to give her room.  This close, he could see the dark shadows under her eyes.  She glanced at his food and seemed to make a decision about something.  
  
“Come sit with me for a while,” she said and walked off without waiting to see if he followed.  He did, but it would have been nice if she hadn't assumed.  She led him up the stairs to her private quarters, where he'd never been, and into a room with a small desk in one corner—the writing area bracketed by neat stacks of paper—and two chairs of elven design in front of a fireplace.  The wall above the mantle was covered in portraits.  Some Carver recognized as his fellow Wardens.  A few were draped in black.  Mahariel sat in one of the chairs and motioned for him to join her.  
  
“Eat,” she said as his stomach chose that moment to growl.  “It will make me feel better for keeping you from your rest.”  She popped a berry in her mouth, and Carver applied himself to his food gratefully.  “Your trip went well?” Mahariel asked as they ate.  
  
_Well_ was an odd word to use for a graveside visit.  “I had no trouble,” he said.  She nodded and seemed to want to ask something else, but stopped herself.  The silence was awkward, so Carver turned his attention to the portraits again.  The place of pride, in the middle and larger than the rest, was given to a male elf.  His frame had draping on it, as did the portraits of two other elves.  Family?  Carver was about to ask when a portrait in the corner caught his eye, and he couldn't help his start of recognition.  
  
“You have one of Merrill,” he said.  
  
Mahariel leaned forward.  “You know Merrill?”  
  
“Her clan was staying outside of Kirkwall when I was there.”  
  
“I'm surprised they welcomed you.  I used to run off humans when I was with them.”  
  
“It's a long story,” Carver said.  “We had to deliver something to the Keeper, and then Merrill left and came back to Kirkwall with us.  She lived in the city after that.”  
  
“ _Merrill_ did?”  
  
Carver looked at her, wondering how much he should say.  The rest of her clan had said awful things about Merrill.  “She had an argument with the Keeper about your people's history.  Merrill was trying to uncover more of it, but the Keeper didn't like her methods.  I don't know the details,” he added, when Mahariel frowned.  
  
“I see,” she said.  
  
“Can I . . .” Carver trailed off uncertainly as he gestured at Merrill's portrait.  Mahariel nodded, and he took it from the wall carefully.  It looked just like her, right down to the tattoos and those silly-looking eye protectors she wore whenever she disappeared into the back room of her home.  They always made her eyes look three times bigger than they were.  
  
“You care for her,” Mahariel said.  
  
Carver bristled.  The other elves in the Alienage hadn't liked that he went around so often.  “So what?”  
  
“I meant nothing by it.”  She seemed sincere, so Carver muttered an apology.  Mahariel smiled.  “Nathaniel says you remind him of himself when he was young, but I think we have much in common as well.”  
  
It hardly seemed possible.  “I've never killed an archdemon,” Carver said.  
  
Mahariel waved her hand.  “That aside.  Do you know how I joined the Wardens?”  He shook his head, and she told him a tale of old ruins, a cursed mirror, lost love, and a stark choice at the end of it all.  “I was very angry for a long time after,” she said.  Carver nodded, thinking of Bethany.  “You have done much better than I did.  And,” she added with a mischievous glint, “we are similar in our special regard.”  
  
That made no sense.  Merrill wasn't dead.  Carver opened his mouth to object when the other shoe dropped.  The rumors about the king weren't just rumors.  
  
“You'll keep that to yourself,” Mahariel said.  “Discretion is necessary, unfortunately.”  
  
And she was trusting him to keep it secret.  He nodded again.  The silence that followed this time was comfortable.  
  
“My sister,” Carver started.  “Bethany.  We were twins.”  He stopped and stared at Merrill again.  Mahariel waited.  “It's not fair,” he said.  “It's just—it's not fair.”  
  
“I'm sorry,” Mahariel said quietly.  “But—forgive me—I envy you a little.  You have some family left still.”  
  
Carver didn't say anything.  Little comfort his family had been.  Even as he had the thought, he felt a twinge of guilt.  For all their arguments and harsh words, there'd been nothing but fear in Marian's eyes when she'd realized the taint was in his blood.  And she'd practically dragged him to the Wardens and had definitely threatened them when it looked like they might refuse to take him.  Maybe he owed her better too.  
  
He stood, and hung Merrill's picture on the wall again.  He brushed the frame with his fingers as he stepped back.  Mahariel watched him with a sad smile.  
  
“Off to bed then?” she asked.  Dark circles under her eyes, but her gaze was steady.  More than exhaustion was in her face.  She said they were alike, and he knew what he'd felt at Bethany's grave.  
  
Carver sat.  “I can stay a bit longer,” he said.    

* * *

Mahariel had always been fascinated by the way telegraphs worked—she liked to think of the clicks as a highly advanced form of birdsong—and it was not unusual to find her taking a turn at the machine at odd hours of the night when she couldn't sleep.  And so it was that in the first week of Parvulis, she sent off a telegram to Kirkwall from a disconcerted junior Warden, who had clearly not expected to be dictating the message to his commanding officer.  
  
MOTHER STOP SURVIVED JOINING STOP BETHANYS GRAVE PRETTY STOP TELL MARIAN THANK YOU FOR REMEDY STOP WILL WRITE AGAIN CARVER  
  
Curiosity had her haunting the office until a response arrived two days later.  
  
CARVER STOP YOURE AN ASS AND YOURE WELCOME STOP YOUD BETTER STOP MARIAN  
  
Mahariel's laughter filled the small room.  She went to the window and looked down to the courtyard.  Temmerin had his latest carriage out and was showing Carver and Sigrun how to change a wheel.  Velanna was hovering a little ways away, as fascinated by the carriages as Mahariel was by the telegraph, but loathe to admit it.  At the other end of the courtyard, Oghren was insulting the size of Nathaniel's guns again, if the way he was brandishing his weapon was any indication.  
  
A strange, small tribe that she had found, but it was hers.  Some days it was almost enough to fill the gaps in her heart.  Today was one of those days.  Mahariel folded the message for Carver and went to meet it.


End file.
